ABSTRACT
In the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), one of its two Senate seats has always been held by a Liberal and the other by a Labor candidate because of the mathematics involved in winning a seat. Senators are elected by a different, more complicated, method than that for Members of the House of Representatives. Each State or Territory votes as one electorate. While preferential voting is used for elections to both Houses, the Senate system adds proportional representation to the vote-counting method. This is to ensure that the proportion of Senate seats won by each party in each State or Territory closely reflects the proportion of the votes gained by that party in that State or Territory. To be elected, each candidate must reach a quota of the formal votes cast. The formula for determining the quota is that the total number of formal votes is divided by one more than the number of candidates to be elected and adding one to the result. For the two mainland territories, the quota is one-third or 33.3%. Given how the major parties allocate preferences, the mathematics of the quota system has meant that, until the 2022 election, it has been impossible for minor parties and independents to obtain a quota in ACT senate elections.
The ACT Senate result reinforces the argument advanced earlier in the book that as a voter’s knowledge of an issue increase, the more they will become involved in efforts to resolve it. In the ACT, the major issue was then Senator Zed Seselja’s personal failure to support the Territory’s progressive views on important issues. Voters switched their traditional support for the major groups to candidates who campaigned with policies to address nationally important issues as well as those of particular concern to the ACT. The combined 25.6% share of the Territory-wide primary vote captured by the two main independents, the most progressive of the candidates, was greater than the total 21% decline recorded by the three major groups. However, the most significant results were Senator David Pocock’s group primary vote of 21.2%, which alone matched the total decline of the major parties’ primary votes, and that the combined primary vote share of the two major independent candidates was greater than that of the ACT Liberals, 24.8%. The chapter concludes that the traditional ACT maths formula for winning ACT Senate elections can be defied by progressive candidates who offer policies that match voter concerns and thus activate them to vote against the major parties.
